The land purchase agreements with the settlers required that water rentals be paid each year, whether water was used for irrigation or not. In the wet years, little or no water was used. In drought periods, the demands for water were excessive and beyond the means of the distribution system to deliver. This created difficulties between the farmers and the CPR. Although the company was lenient in forcing landowners to pay their obligated debts, they gave up trying to make a success of their irrigation undertakings and looked for means of divesting themselves of the unprofitable venture.
During the Depression of the mid 1930s, a large number of water contracts were cancelled. In 1935 only 7,700 hectares were irrigated. By 1940 the cost of maintenance had reached about three times the earnings. In 1944, when the Western Irrigation District (W.I.D.) was formed under the Irrigation Districts Act, the CPR transferred the irrigation works, together with $400,000 for the replacement of major structures, to the landowners. Development progressed from that time, in 1979 there were 18,800 hectares of land irrigated within the district. Of this total, over 80 per cent was irrigated by sprinklers.